Human Capital Management

Everybody deserves to build a livelihood through a job that supports them with the resources and training needed to thrive. Across all 50 U.S. states and in more than 55 countries, AT&T employees deliver technology and telecommunications services to millions of consumers and businesses every day. We strive to be an employer of choice and invest in our people through well-paying jobs, competitive benefits and skills development programs that open advancement opportunities.

The success of our employees drives our company’s success. And we are proud to hold the top spot on the 2022 American Opportunity Index measuring 3 key factors—access to opportunities, wages and career mobility.

In 2022, our work on human capital management spanned multiple areas and focused on delivering the best employee experience. Highlights include:

• We redesigned our benefits in response to employee feedback, providing new, meaningful options that support our employees’ total well-being. We also enhanced several programs such as paid parental leave, caregiver leave and bereavement for employees and their families.
• We leveraged data-driven marketing techniques to identify and engage talent, driving over 8 million users to our careers website and resulting in nearly 800,000 applicants. We optimized the candidate experience by creating a frictionless process, helping us hire 46,000 people in 2022.
• We negotiated 8 collective bargaining agreements with unions representing 23,000 employees.³⁶ These negotiations improve and preserve wages, work rules and benefits of union careers.

Governance

The Human Resources Committee (HRC) of our Board of Directors (Board) oversees human resources matters for all employees. Our Senior Executive Vice President of Human Resources (HR) leads our global HR efforts. This position communicates directly with the HRC and Board. Details about the HRC are outlined below:

• Compensation & Benefits Oversight: The authority for benefits decisions may be delegated to the Chief Executive Officer or other human resources senior leaders depending on the magnitude of the financial impact. Delegation of compensation decisions depends on an individual’s management level and compensation.
• HRC Meetings: The HRC meets several times a year to discuss compensation matters, and the full Board receives annual reports on compensation for top executives as well as more frequent updates on human capital issues.

Culture & Employee Engagement

The way we connect with our customers is key to successfully growing customer relationships. And the way we work together and support each other to deliver solutions for these customers matters to our employees. As we simplify our overall business portfolio and focus on connectivity through 5G and fiber, we will continue to advance our overall cultural transformation through the following initiatives:

• How We Connect: After conducting employee focus groups, surveys and interviews to gain an honest evaluation of our strengths and areas of opportunity—and assess what’s most important to our employees—we launched the How We Connect culture model in 2020. This model outlines the behaviors all AT&T employees should embody, including how we think about work, treat one another, make decisions and act. This model has been foundational for business unit leaders in inspiring and empowering their teams. It has also been central to projects across the business, such as Project Raindrops, which focused on eliminating, automating or improving processes at AT&T.
• Employee Development: We focus on creating a culture of continuous feedback and development by setting clear work expectations and providing regular feedback, coaching and performance evaluation. Our review process includes peer, manager and direct report feedback to identify areas of high performance and areas for further improvement. Employees can also use a 360-degree feedback survey directly aligned to our How We Connect behaviors to provide more well-rounded insight and help them grow in their careers. In 2022, over 82,000 management employees engaged in the feedback process themselves with formal midyear and end-of-year check-ins.

Employee Engagement

We strive for employees to feel engaged and fulfilled by their work and connected to the company. One way AT&T measures employee engagement is through employee feedback, which we gather in several ways, including:

• Employee Surveys:
  • Results from the annual AT&T Employee Survey are shared throughout the organization, providing all leaders who receive at least 5 responses with the ability to create and drive targeted initiatives based on employee feedback. Leaders are encouraged to complete and track action plans based on their team’s feedback and are provided with resources to do so. Our Chief Human Resources Officer provides periodic updates to the Board on our survey results. In 2022, our Employee Survey response rate was 65%.
  • AT&T gathers employee feedback on ethics, honesty and integrity through our Biennial Compliance Survey, hosted by the Chief Compliance Office. The survey is administered by a third party and employee responses are confidential. Results are aggregated to protect the identity of our employees and create a safe forum to raise key issues. We use results to understand and improve programs throughout AT&T.

Compensation & Benefits⁷

AT&T works hard to provide competitive compensation and benefits for our employees. AT&T is committed to pay equity, and we regularly review and adapt compensation when needed to ensure fair and equitable pay practices across our business. While we monitor pay equity for all employees, we publicly report a portion of our operations in our U.K. Pay Gap Report.

Employee Total Well-Being

We prioritize holistic well-being by encouraging healthy behaviors and creating space for employees to dedicate time to their wellness—social, physical, emotional and financial. Our comprehensive benefits aim to support our people in their unique well-being journeys. Highlights from 2022 include:

• Enhanced Benefits: We redesigned our healthcare and well-being benefits to provide new, meaningful options, including the ability to choose between different networks and plan types, in response to employee feedback and to deepen our culture of total well-being. We also enhanced several programs including paid parental leave, caregiver leave and bereavement. To ensure employees understand their benefits options, we facilitated nearly 100 well-being resource presentations for more than 40,000 employees across the business.
• Investment: We offered healthcare and well-being benefits to 1 million employees, retirees and their eligible dependents in the U.S.⁶

Social Well-Being: Time Off & Family Support

AT&T has a strong focus on family planning, family building and caregiving. Our benefits cover fertility, including egg freezing services; surrogacy and adoption; subsidized backup dependent and elder care; and more. Offerings include:

• Paid Parental Leave: As part of our suite of family benefits, paid parental leave (including for adoptive parents) provides parents up to 12 weeks of paid time off to bond with the new addition to their family.⁸ This time may be extended for birthing parents when paired with applicable short-term disability benefits. Paid parental leave benefits are also available to a portion of union employees.
• Caregiver Leave: We provide management employees up to 3 weeks of paid caregiver leave to be there for a child, grandchild, parent or certain other loved ones for qualified situations.
• Family Planning & Support: Through our family planning and support services, all employees have access to 24/7 virtual support for pregnancy, postpartum, loss, adoption/surrogacy and return to work. Management employees also have access to 5 days off for pregnancy loss/miscarriage. We also offer maternity rooms for nursing mothers and breastmilk benefits, including shipping breastmilk for nursing mothers in the event of work travel.
• Paid Time Off: Management employees receive established paid time off (PTO), either 23 days or 28 days based on service. Employees also receive sick time, incrementally, as needed, for up to 7 consecutive business days. Bargained employees also receive generous PTO, holidays and sick time that have been negotiated with unions across multiple collective bargaining agreements.

Physical Well-Being: Medical Condition Management

Our medical programs offer employees and their families a variety of ways to take care of their health, including:

• On-Site Health & Well-Being: We offer an on-site health and well-being center at our Dallas, Texas headquarters so that our employees can see a doctor, physical therapist, chiropractor, psychologist and/or condition management nurse all in the convenience of their workday.
• Specialized Care: We offer specialized pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, weight management, digital physical therapy and sleep programs. These programs allow employees and partners who participate in these programs to manage conditions from their homes through access to specialized virtual care teams and connected devices (glucose monitors, blood pressure cuffs, scales, wearable sensors and continuous positive airway pressure machines).
• Medical Travel: In certain circumstances, if an employee does not have access to a needed medical service virtually or in person near their home, we provide reimbursement for medical travel to obtain the service in another geographical area.
• Gender Affirmation: We offer medical coverage with guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to members in AT&T-sponsored medical plans. Our coverage includes a comprehensive program which provides advocates to help connect with quality and affirming physical and behavioral health providers as well as social and emotional support. This is available to all LGBTQ+ employees and dependents over 18 years of age.
• Supplemental Benefits: Our CarePlus supplemental benefit program covers many experimental and expanded services rarely covered through a traditional health plan. Our members have access to experimental treatments for cancer and other less common conditions; expanded coverage for speech, occupational and physical therapy; and services like augmented reality/virtual reality gaming digital therapy for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, childbirth classes, doula support and even service animals.
• COVID-19 Care: We completely covered the cost of COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccines for employees and dependents through our AT&T health plans. We made it convenient for employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by working with vendors to establish on-site vaccination clinics at AT&T locations across the country.

Emotional Well-Being: EAP & Mental Health Services

We offer services and opportunities for all employees to take care of their mental health, including:

• Employee Assistance Program: AT&T’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides professional and confidential assistance to employees and their families who experience work-related or personal challenges.
• Supplemental Therapy Program: In addition to our core EAP, we have expanded therapy visits through a supplemental program focused on getting our employees quicker access to high-quality, outcomes-based short-term therapy.
• Resilience & Mindfulness Service: We offer a digital resilience building and mindfulness service to help employees focus on stress and anxiety management, work on exercises for building resilience, and ultimately focus on their emotional needs.
• Stamp Out Stigma: Launched in 2013, our annual Stamp Out Stigma campaign encourages employees to pledge to stamp out the stigma—a personal commitment to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. In 2022, more than 5,000 employees participated in the initiative. Thousands of employees take the pledge each year. Stamp Out Stigma has been recognized by the National Business Group on Health’s Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles® awards program, which recognizes the best workforce well-being initiatives in the U.S. The campaign received a Special Recognition in the Emotional Health category.

Financial Well-Being: Savings Plans & Professional Advice

We support our employees’ financial well-being through the following initiatives and programs:

• Health-related Finances: We offer designated employee groups flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement accounts and/or payroll deductions, and company contributions to health savings accounts that allow them to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare and dependent care costs with tax-advantaged funds.
• Retirement Plans: Through an array of retirement vehicles—including defined-benefit and/or defined-contribution plans—we are helping employees plan for retirement. All full-time U.S. employees are eligible for a 401(k) savings plan with a generous company match. As participants in the AT&T savings plans, employees can choose from a wide range of investment options with varying risk tolerance levels to assist in their retirement needs. Savings plan participants have access to an investment advisory service with 2 levels of service: free online tools or fee-based professional account management with an adviser.
• Engagement Opportunities: In addition to our financial programs and services, we offer opportunities for employees to participate in educational workshops, events, videos and discussion forums regarding financial well-being.
• AT&T Employee Relief Fund: The AT&T Employee Relief Fund—a 501(c)(3) public charity supported by employee donations and matching grants from the AT&T Foundation—is available for employees to request assistance for disaster relief and personal hardships.

Flexible Work

Flexible work is an important aspect of creating an inclusive culture. AT&T offers a variety of work scheduling options for many roles, including alternative and compressed workweeks, flextime, makeup time, and part-time schedules, as well as full-time work-from-home positions. Details are outlined below:

• Remote & Hybrid Work: Management employees can be assigned to work primarily from home, regularly go to AT&T work locations based on the needs of the business or flex their time between home and an AT&T work location/client location.
• Virtual Call Centers: Union-represented call center employees can apply to work in virtual centers, which allow them to work from home.

Training & Career Development

Providing resources and opportunities to support dynamic and fulfilling careers is a core aspect of our employee value proposition. In 2022, AT&T invested $135 million in employee training, reached 197,000 employees and delivered 8 million hours of training to employees—an average of 42 hours per employee.⁵⁹ Our approach, outlined below, includes performance reviews and career discussions, training, learning opportunities, and tuition assistance.

• Performance Reviews & Career Development Discussions: In 2022, 98% of salaried employees (entry level through vice presidents) with at least 3 months of service received a formal performance appraisal.⁴ While we do not track the frequency of career development discussions, our supervisors are encouraged to have continuous feedback discussions at least once a month with their direct reports and a career discussion once a year, which may or may not occur during a formal review. Career discussions with employees may focus on short- and/or long-term career planning. We also provide career guidance through Career Intelligence, an online platform powered by machine learning that pre-populates skills on employees’ skill profiles. The skill profile is a digital currency that generates training and development recommendations and suggests jobs that an employee is a good fit for.
• AT&T University: Our award-winning internal training organization, AT&T University, offers new hire training, continuation training for a current role, advanced learning for a potential future role, mentoring and career development programs. Our professional development content includes leadership skills, health and wellness, and other corporate initiatives, and we partner with learning institutions such as Harvard Business and LinkedIn Learning to offer leadership and career courses. Our Virtual Studios broadcast live, leader-led training to employees across the globe. We deliver content year-round through our custom-built AT&T University app. Employee online training sessions are booked, completed and logged through our Personal Learning Experience platform, helping us measure our training programs’ performance and identify trends. In 2022, our employees completed an average of 37 courses per employee through AT&T University.⁴⁵
  • In 2022, we delivered 4 million hours of new hire training to help incoming employees learn about the company and their department-specific roles and responsibilities.⁹
  • We help employees develop role-specific skills through continuous training. An example of this is through Real Time Training, a dynamic methodology that uses machine learning to deliver short-form training content to individual employees. With Real Time Training, we can identify the target audience, their training timeline, and the optimal training solution that will drive the greatest performance improvements for the employee’s respective key performance indicators. In 2022, employees who received real-time tutorial recommendations generated $1.1 million in incremental revenue. This yielded 4,467 incremental new postpaid, broadband and video customers. The overall lifetime value of these new customers is $7.9 million.
  • Our advanced learning programs help employees identify the most impactful path to grow their skills. In 2022, 2.1 million training hours were recorded for our advanced learning programs, with 326,000 hours registered toward employee upskilling for a future role.⁵ Also, in 2022, 57% of AT&T management employees engaged in advanced learning programs provided or subsidized by the company.⁵
    • We work with external organizations, including public and private universities, to help create educational opportunities for our employees. For example, we are collaborating with the University of Oklahoma on a Master of Science in data science and analytics program. AT&T has also partnered with LinkedIn Learning to offer its entire catalog as a learning resource for employees, including courses in business, technology and creative subjects.
• Tuition Assistance: We invested $10.5 million in tuition assistance for both management and nonmanagement employees in 2022.⁴ We closely monitor the number of employees who take advantage of these learning and development opportunities, and in 2022, 2,487 employees participated in the tuition reimbursement program.⁴ Internal research shows that employees who have completed training are more likely to obtain a new job within the company than employees who have not done so.

Talent Attraction & Recruitment

We are focused on creating a collaborative, customer-oriented and diverse workforce, starting with talent attraction and recruitment. Our approach to talent attraction and recruitment includes:

• Talent Acquisition: In 2022, we applied data-driven marketing techniques to identify and engage job-seeking audiences, driving over 8 million users to our careers website and resulting in nearly 800,000 applicants. We optimized the candidate experience by making it simpler for candidates to apply, resulting in 46,000 hires in 2022.
• Onboarding: We focus on creating a positive onboarding experience for all candidates to ensure job readiness and continued engagement.
• Diverse Recruitment: We place great value on having a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities we work in—a product of continuous effort to recruit diverse talent and create a culture where employees from every segment of society are treated with fairness and provided equal opportunities for career advancement. We also work to give opportunities to groups that face challenges in gaining employment. For example, we work with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program and Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative to give reformed inmates a fresh start. For more information, please visit our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion issue brief.
• People Analytics Capabilities: We are enhancing our people analytics capabilities and, in 2022, centralized data for diversity, employee performance, compensation and performance awards, employee movement, return-to-work initiatives and more. This will provide better insight to identify trends and make more strategic, data-driven decisions related to talent attraction, hiring and retention.

Union Relationships

With approximately 42% union-represented employees, we have one of the largest full-time, union-represented workforces in the U.S.³⁵ Recent agreements are proof that even during challenging economic times, the company and unions can work together to provide and protect high-quality middle-class careers—jobs with competitive wages and benefits that are among the best in the country. We’ve built cooperative relationships with our unions, primarily with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. We work diligently with unions to create competitive contracts that provide good wages and benefits for our employees. We have reached 16 collective bargaining agreements with unions since 2020. In 2022, we negotiated 8 collective bargaining agreements with unions. Please see the AT&T Bargaining website  for additional details.

In 2023, we will continue our efforts to be an employer of choice. We plan to advance professional development for our workforce and recruit talent through many initiatives, including:

• We are exploring a partnership with the Communications Workers of America to create an apprenticeship program for broadband technicians. Our purpose is to cultivate a strong pipeline of talent and foster interest for careers in telecommunications.
• We will work to streamline the tuition aid process through partnerships with community colleges to design and deliver training programs for internal candidates to learn about, and develop skills required for, broadband technician jobs without having to leave their existing positions.

• American Opportunity Index
• AT&T Bargaining website 
• AT&T Careers website
• AT&T Communications and Corporate U.K. Pay Gap Report
• Communications Workers of America
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• Jobs at AT&T: Diversity & Inclusion
• Life at AT&T
• National Business Group on Health
• Prison Entrepreneurship Program
• Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative